Tag Archives: DNA

Whoa! Legless Bronco Busting

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Legless Bronco Busting!!!

Hang on to your hats ladies and Gentlemen! Here’s the latest in Rodeo events, the newest, the wildest, the craziest yet, its LEGLESS BRONCO BUSTING!!! That’s right we said it, you heard it, Legless Bronco Busting. The new event that’s sweeping the rodeo circuits from Texas to Oklahoma, Wyoming to Oregon, Colorado to, well you get the picture. It’s everywhere. Are you bored with the same old wild mustang bucking horses that come out and jump around the arena for a while doing stupefying flying leaps and incredible horse-like acrobatics while trying to unseat its rider. The spectacular has become boring. You’ve seen it all before and you’re tired of it. So all that’s left is to head to the refreshment stand and drink some beer to break the boredom. Better to go hammer back a dozen longnecks then watch the same old Crow hop, sidestep, Sunfish, swap ends, flip over backward, bite you in the loading chutes, tired old antics of conventional buckers. If that’s where you’re at then this newest of the new events Legless Bronco Busting is right up your alley.

What’s wrong with the old stuff? Why do we need a new event? Well that’s easy. If you’ve been to a World Championship rodeo, say like the one in Vegas or Tucson with all that prize money and seen the same old dusty world champion cowboys riding the same old tired world-class bucking stock. Staying on for 8 seconds, throwing their hats in the air, wearing those big fancy belt buckles, lip packed full of Skoal, you know that deep down you’d like to see something fresh, something new, something that puts the shine back on your chaps. Well Legless Bronco Busting is just the ticket.

A little history about the event. Bronco busting has been around since way before Gene Autry or Roy Rodgers. It goes way back. Back even before Lash LaRue. Some say it was the first event ever held and prepared the world for what we now know as RODEO. Don’t know if I’d go that far, but it has been around for a long time. Way before TV anyway. But it’s gotten a little stale. The Boomer generation, which has practically ruled the world ever since they came into being, is getting a little long in the tooth. Aging, getting old. Some of them are way into their late 60’s 70’s and even their early 80’s and they still want to rodeo. They still want to ride the big rides. They still want to go the saloon for a shot and a beer and a fistfight. They want to chase, or at least shuffle, after those long-legged but buxom cowgirls that hang out in those smoky, whiskey infused places. They want to win those big belt buckles to complement their wide suspenders. They’re not done yet, not by any means. But what to do? They can’t even crawl up the sides of those loading chutes to board a bronc let alone stick on anything but a toilet seat for 8 seconds.

That’s where the genius of modern technology comes into play. Science in other words,  the same stuff that brought you global warming. You all heard of genetic modification, or the cloning of that sheep, Dolly. That’s all done with science. You put some DNA into the hopper, usually about 6 or 7 pounds depending on what you want to make, dial-up what new  animal you want, flip the 440 electrical switch and stand back as out pops a new sheep or goat or in this case a new kind of horse. That’s the secret right there to this newest of new rodeo events. A Legless horse. They made a legless horse! Cool beans, right? Well to be accurate the horse isn’t totally legless, that wouldn’t work, those suckers are heavy, no, it’s just a horse with radically shortened legs. Like only 6-8 in. long not counting the hooves. Using a mix of DNA from Lipizzaner stock out of Austria, known for it’s jumping ability, some Percheron stock out of France for its wide back, some Black Forest Horse, also called the Black Forest cold blood or Schwarzwälder Kaltblut, because it’s the rarest horse in the world and the guys doing this had a lot of money, and last but not least some DNA from a few broomtails out of the west Texas hill country because there was some left in the bottom of the bucket from another experiment.

What they got was the Legless horse, the meanest, orneriest, most unforgiving bucking stock on practically no legs. Now boomer cowboys can march up to the chutes, park their walker next to the gate, sort of lean over the back and fall on. It’s like getting on a Roomba that eats hay. The chute door opens and they hang on for dear life as the horse wallows and pitches and jumps dizzyingly into the air, leaps are often as high as 6-8 inches before slamming back down to earth in a bone-jarring crash, twirls slowly, rears back and does its damnest to throw that octogenarian rider into the next county. As you can see in the image above it’s a wild ride. Dust is flying, the horse is trying to rear up, it’s rolling and leaping, the ride is terrifying. So much so that you can see the rider clutching one of the stanchions of the chute gate thinking to save his life. Disqualifying for sure, but better than dying. No score for him today.

There it is folks, Legless Bronco Busting, the newest most electrifying rodeo event to come down the road since *Horse Spinning. Watch the PRCA circuit for its inclusion in its next major rodeo and don’t be surprised if it becomes a world-wide sensation. I know I will be.

*http://www.bigshotsnow.com/horse-spinning/

Surrealism and Turkeys A Holiday Story

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Surrealism is seldom affiliated with Turkeys or the day in which we eat them. It is usually thought of as an art movement where in the words of one artsy art guy, its aim was to “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality”. It’s like a really big deal in art circles and everyone who knows about it is very proud of their knowledge. Mainly because most real people don’t know what it is and the art guys get to look very smart when they talk about it.

So whats that got to do with turkeys, Thanksgiving, and the proper preparation of their carcasses. Normally we’d say not much, but in the case of our free-range turkeys here on *The Institute’s grounds it’s a very big deal, huge actually. Because of the fact that our Institute’s hunters, I mean gatherers go out and collect about 150 male, female and children turkeys to feed our staff, interns and hangers-on each Thanksgiving, the turkeys have become very adept at camouflaging themselves in the weeks leading up to their Day of Doom as they call it. So adept that they have changed their DNA and developed strategic methods of keeping themselves from being harvested.

In the image above you can see one of the abilities that they have developed which is to project a dreamy, fog enshrouded look, a surrealistic mood if you will, to hide their passage past the commissary and its lurking Turkey harvesters. How is this possible you ask? It took us a long time to figure this one out ourselves, but after capturing one male turkey and giving him a tour of the modern hygienically sterile robotically equipped turkey processing center and offering him immunity, he spilled his guts (figuratively speaking) and showed us his genetically improved body. There are glands beneath their wings that will emit a heavy misty fog like atmosphere around them as they walk and flap their wings. The more they flap the greater the fog until they are virtually undetectable. This is pretty remarkable if not unbelievable when you think about it.

The turkey above is one Mrs. Breton with her children Andre, Cecily and Yolanda, A Surrealist of the first order, heading off into the far reaches of the Institutes back country until the holidays are over. As they pass through the fog they utilize the other major protective defense they have developed, a substance they call turkey sweat which is secreted by more glands on the bottoms of their feet. As they walk they leave a trail of this turkey sweat which has strong hallucinogenic properties that are picked up and dispersed thru the fog causing anyone within 800 yards of the turkeys to see things very differently. Everything becomes extremely surrealistic. Kind of like that acid trip you came down from once while rafting down the Colorado river and watching the walls of the Grand Canyon turn vivid hues of color like an old Technicolor movie before melting and threatening to capsize the boat.

We had been wondering why our Turkey harvest had gone from the hundreds down to like four this year. Now we know. Everybody connected with harvesting the usually plentiful flock of birds has been sitting around in the meadow chewing on grass stems and looking at the sun for long periods of time. Although we have our anti-hallucinogenic department working feverishly on an antidote to the Turkey problem it looks like we’ll be having sauerkraut tacos with fried okra and perhaps some spaghetti dumplings for Thanksgiving dinner this year. But that’s better than nothing at all which is what the Canadians have each year as they thoughtlessly continue to not celebrate Thanksgiving. They’re fat, dumb and happy up there eating moose parts with lard cakes and spam balls dipped in pine needles. But that’s their choice. If they weren’t so nice we’d hold that against them.

We hope to have the Turkey problem under control next year at this time but in the meantime everyone here at The Institute wishes you a very Happy Thanksgiving. If you feel funny later in the day it was probably the turkey. Just lay down for a while. It should be ok.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind. Return to your daily activities. Thank you for your support.

Spring Portraits

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March is “When The Bluebirds Get Here” month. So is February. And sometimes April if the weather has been particularly bad, but this year the month is March.

In the past we had to rely on natural migration schedules to get our quotas of Western Bluebirds. They can be in short supply due to their being the most popular of the bluebird species, and they have often been coerced into going to other states by handouts of Bluebird chow, favorable nesting sites and one state who shall remain nameless but their initials are Utah, tried to make it their state bird, thereby gathering some legal advantage of some sort. In the past we have had to offer some of our sister states to the West a premium of two Stellar Jays and a Clark’s Nutcracker to get one Western Bluebird.

As you know The institute has its own Ornithology department with trained and highly intelligent bird guys (and girls) studying birds, bird books, bird seed, bird brains, and lately bird genetics. That’s the big one. That’s the one that is going to put us on the map bird-wise. Genetics is the new thing. It’s like plastic was in the 60’s. Huge.

They found that they can yank the DNA right out of a bird, futz around with it, and stuff it back in and make big changes to how a bird works. Our problem had been that bluebirds don’t like the cold so as soon as the temp drops much below 60 degrees they haul their little feathered keesters south for the winter. That’s the problem. While they’re down there they can be swayed by any one of those unscrupulous Orno guys from other states and we lose our stock of bluebirds.

The problem was birds head south, then we lose them. Solution, and this is where genius comes into play, is we took that bluebird DNA and added a whole bunch of genetic stuff to it before we repacked it back into the bluebirds. For instance we added the anti-freeze gene to it so now our bluebirds are good down to about -126 degrees, we added a fixed route from anywhere South directly to The Institutes front door to their GPS gene, we added the Horsepucky detector gene so that they can tell when they’re being conned by those guys from Utah, and lastly we added an extra amount of Bluebird blue to their blue color gene so we now have the brightest Western bluebirds in the northern hemisphere.

Their was one more big change we are experimenting with and this is the first spring to see how our experiment worked out. We added an extra gene to the Anti-freeze gene to make a small number of bluebirds hibernational. Hibernational is a term we just made up here in our Ornithology department that means these particular bluebirds can lower their body temperatures down to the approximate temperature of one of those Big Gulp Slurpee’s you get at 7-11 and then be buried in neat rows in the snow over the winter to be ready to emerge at the first sign of Spring.

When the snow melts as it does every spring the snow bound bluebirds slowly awaken as they respond to the sun’s rays on their little beaks, and they pop up through the snow like Pasque flowers and start hanging around, getting an early start on Spring. It gives them at least a two-week head start on those Utah bluebirds so they are already hooked up with a bluebird chick, found a good nesting box, etc. and our supply of Western Bluebirds is guaranteed. Their GPS gene tells them they’re already here so they don’t take off and go cruising somewhere else so we got them locked. Our own inbred species of Western Bluebirds. Neat Right? Science is really cool.

We are photographing each of our newly altered bluebirds and tattooing an ID number on the underside of their tongues so that we can better keep track of them. Here is the first reconstituted Western Bluebird to emerge from its snow bunker. He seems in fine shape. We’ll let you know how he does in the reproduction department as the data come in. So far it looks great.

Wayfarers In The Night

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If your day is on the verge of being hectic we suggest that you take a moment, get something warm to drink ( we’re suggesting Twinning’s English Breakfast Tea but the choice is yours ) find a soft chair and gaze upon this image for a while.

Our Intergalactic cameras caught this image of Journeyers as they flew by our stationary trail cam on an exploration through the cosmos in search of the perfect color blue. These Wayfarers or Journeyers have been searching for millennia for this color and as their travel speed is approximately 1.4 mph and their destination is approximately 7210 light years away they are having tough sledding trying to reach their goal.

They cannot reproduce unless the exact Chroma of deep Indigo blue exists, so they travel throughout space searching for this color and their home. The Institute maintains a database of known and some unknown colors that exist in the Universe, and their coordinates for just such a purpose as this. We have located the coordinates of this color which we are beaming to the Wayfarers to aid them in their search. For those interested the group is located just out of our universe on a heading towards true Galactic North. The coordinates which also represent the location for the particular shade they need are Hex triplet #4B0082; sRGB 75,0,130; cmyk 42, 100, 0, 49; by HSV 42, 100, 0, 49.

This has been an ongoing project titled Deep Color and we have been collecting the appropriate data since the inception of The Institute. These coordinates represent a shortcut that will save the travelers hours and hours off their travel time.  As it will take about 8000 years using our CenturyLink Wireless Modem to reach them we will be standing by to make sure they receive the information before we re-transmit.

Meanwhile relax and enjoy the image, which by the way is actually a slightly darker shade of Blue, almost into the violet range. If the Journeyers could make just a slight change in their DNA they could be partying right this moment, with the resulting little Journeyers soon zipping around being kids, but alas they haven’t evolved to that stage yet. They are bound by their stunted growth and lack of a true brain to finish their search no matter how long it takes, so we say Bon Voyage, wayfarers. Be sure to let us know how this all turns out. If we’re still here that is.

valsonindia.com/…/Quarterly-Financial-Results-sep-2016.pdf

Notice! Important Rodeo News Announcement

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This post has been moved to OpenChutes.com. All future postings of Powwows, Indian Relay Races, Rodeos and Rendezvous will be posted there from now on exclusively. So if you’re looking for new images and posts for all those events attended this year, plus all the old posts posted on BigShotsNow.com check out OpenChutes.com. See you there!

For Immediate Release:

No NDA; Full Dispersement All TV, Radio and Print

© The Institute Public Relations Department

New Breed of Rodeo Bull available immediately

The Institute announced today the release of a new breed of bull to be used in all general rodeos both public and private. A member of the Sanga species of cattle, the Ankole-Watusi or Ankole Longhorn is a 1200-1600 lb. animal with rather remarkable horns that grow to 8′ in width and have been measured at 12′ across from tip to tip in the truly larger specimens.

We see them as particularly interesting in events such as Steer roping, Steer Wrestling, Bull riding, kiddie rodeos etc. We do not recommend them for petting zoos, carnivals or arcades that feature cows doing tricks, or as a replacement for oxen, carabao, or other domesticated breeds of working cattle. Due to their unpredictable tendencies towards mayhem and property damage we do not sell, rent or lend them to private citizens or countries hostile to the interests of the U.S.

They are trail-able in open top trailers with four or more axles. They do not respond well to cattle prods but can be managed with portable Arc welders set on high. Tig welders work best rather than the spool fed Mig welder as you can more easily drop the Tig welder assembly and run away when necessary, where as many Cowhands have become tangled in the wire feeder spool of the Tig welder and been tripped up letting the irritated bull “Catch” them and stomp off their legs.

Imagine the excitement of watching the “Big Loop” ropers as they spin the big hoop to catch one of these fast-moving bullet train bulls. Or the size of the biceps, not to mention the Juevos, on those heavy duty Steer wrestlers as they try to bring down one of these bad boys. Bull riders will be “backing up” when they draw one of these huge fellows. Think Mike Tyson when they draw one of these guys and hopefully getting an ear bit off will be the least of their problems. They’ll probably need an ear bit off just to get on one of these. These are not just your typical African cows. As you may have already imagined, being a product of The Institute, we have genetically modified these bulls to behave just a little more aggressively and be a tad more murderous and quicker to become miffed at any one who tries to ride them.

These new “Rodeo Ready™ bulls are only available from The Institute and can be rented by the hour, day or season (with acceptable credit) from our Rodeo-Ready™ Supply store here at The Institute’s Rodeo Training™ and Physical Therapy department. Note: Due to liability issues we can not rent out more that 150 bulls to any one customer. Please contact Clarence “one Eye” McThompson in our prosthetics and Ass-Sling department for more details.

End of Press Release. All news outlets run as many times as possible. See below for further information on these great new Rodeo Bulls.

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These animals were usually owned by African Royalty and were called the “Cattle of Kings” and the Inyambo, “the cows with long, long horns.” As this breed is also known for its ferocious, aggressive tendencies and a unabiding hatred of humans, and a desire and an ability to mash much of the royalty that owned them to a thin paste under their hooves, plus their inability to get along generally, they are considered extinct in many parts of Africa today. This bull is an adaptation of a much older African species of bovine mutilators used by many tribes to decimate, or at least wipe out, their enemies by sending elven or twelve of them into their neighbors Enkang (village) to wreak havoc on their Bombas (homes) by first leveling the village then eating the materials used to build their huts. Thereby leaving their enemies homeless, penniless and dung ridden and easy to subdue.

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This close up of bull no. 8811 or “Little Bill” as he’s known around the bull pen, shows one of the new characteristics of our genetic meddling with their DNA. Look closely at the rings circling their horns and you will see that there are darker and lighter rings circling them. Each of those rings are a permanent encoded marker, or record, of their victories in the arena. The darker rings signify the number of cowboys or anyone else goofy enough to get too close to them that indicates the contest resulted in a successful fatality. The lighter rings show that a permanent maiming took place rather than a fatality. This is a handy way to easily see the bulls level of meanness which is helpful if you want to bail when you’ve seen you’ve drawn one of these to ride. Given the patented lighter/darker formula of indicating the outcome of individual contests the completely dark areas at the ends of Little Bills horns show that he was one of the original dozen bulls sent into a village and the fatalities were too high to count. This resulted in the blackout at the end of his horns. Don’t mess with Little Bill if you don’t have to.

Let us know if we can help you with your stock needs at any of your official, private, or backyard rodeos and we’ll be happy to send you one sample bull to try out. If you think he meets your needs we’ll be glad to work out a rental program to suit your requirements. Rodeo season is just around the corner and as the fatality record goes up these bulls will be hard to find. Reserve your stock now while we’re making deals. Otherwise expect to pay top dollar when all your regular bulls wimp out during the height of the season. Please direct all correspondence to The Director at the Institute.